


Patchwork

by sunsroom



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Ficlet, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, could be read as a little shippy, i mean in my heart its widomauk but it isnt really written like it is, kinda like the afterlife?, spoilers for episode 26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsroom/pseuds/sunsroom
Summary: Leave every town better than you found it, fix what you can, fix who you can.





	Patchwork

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation I had with @nsmorig

There’s a coat before him, resting on top of a piece of wood, its hem just dusting the snow as the wind blows. It’s a deep red, if he was feeling fancy he might have even called it vermillion, and when wasn’t he feeling fancy? As he approached more and more details swam into focus: it’s multitude of pockets, the lining is worn, how the brilliant red fades to a murky brown. 

Oh.

The realisation his him like a heavy stone. He knows who’s coat this is. The man he’s known for a scant few weeks has so many secrets, so many burdens, and they all lead back to this coat. What this coat means. What has been done while wearing it. Who else wears its copies. He shouldn't know all this, but in the snow a kind of clarity sets in. 

And so Molly sits, understanding now why he has been brought here. The coat on the staff is not just fabric, but a man. A small and broken man who he must mend. Spools of thread in gold and turquoise appear around him on the freshly fallen snow, scraps of fabric and odd buttons and beads. Mollymauk sets to work. His jewelry glints in the light, it would be cold but that's a feeling that doesn't belong to him anymore. The cold cannot work its way into his bones like it used to.

Swirls of colour now set the coat alight, its red hidden behind browns and purples and blues. The insignia on its chest is patched with an embroidery of a hooded figure and behind him a reversed crescent moon. A con-man he may be but the cards do have a power, even if it is only in the subconscious. People look for a path and the cards can guide them, he hopes they can guide his- his friend.

Molly spends the night making a new coat for a new man. A fresh start and a place for peace. Leave every town better than you found it, and if you can, give something back. If you have to leave, then leave your friends better than you found them. 

It is his time to leave. Asking for second chances would be foolish, he’s already had that. As second chances go he thinks he’s done a damn good job. He started lost, confused and alone. But he found a family, misfits and freaks, but a family none the less. Sometimes he wondered what he was before, but it always passed. Mollymauk was here now and that's wat mattered. Mollymauk was there, he only hopes he's done enough to make amends. 

He can’t fix the coat, or the man who wears it. He has no dye that will stay, but he can hide it, redecorate and reinvent the both of them. Leave something of himself behind that will make an impact. 

 

\---

The worn coat looks just the same as it has for years. The brilliant red faded to a muddy brown, the emblem torn off and worn away, but beneath the dirt, beneath the fabric itself is a secret. Death and the moon, a red necklace and a promise. A promise to leave him, leave all of them better than how they were found. And somewhere, in the ground as the mushrooms grow around him, a devil smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> The patch is a mixture of the Death card and the Moon card, it felt fitting.
> 
> DEATH  
> Upright: Endings, change, transformation, transition  
> Reversed: Resistance to change, personal transformation, inner purging  
> MOON  
> Upright: Illusion, fear, anxiety, subconscious, intuition  
> Reversed: Release of fear, repressed emotion, inner confusion


End file.
